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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
I don't think I'd even bother
Posted By: Jerry In Response To: radar reflector (risto)
Date: Tuesday, 19 December 2000, at 9:09 a.m.
In all honesty, and I'll probably get flamed for this, but I wouldn't even waste my time or money with one. I'd suggest picking up a couple copies of sailing magazines. From time to time they do test with these things and their results are mixed. That's not to say that reflectors don't work, a great many do. However, their usefulness on a kayak in severly limited. It's important to keep in mind to that many of those test are staged. Basically they already know where the test subject is, where he's going, what speed etc.... All they're really looking for is a return on the RADAR screen. In the real world it's never that simple.
My primary job while I was in the Navy was the operation of RADAR. In my four years experience of looking at those things I can tell you with certanity that looking at a RADAR screen does have a hypnotic effect and on a craft that small it probably won't make a difference one way or another.
The range and ability of a RADAR wave to detect be reflected and received depends on a lot of factors. However, one of the bigger factors that comes into play is the height of the object above the water. In essence the taller the object the sooner it will be detected. On that same note the, taller the RADAR antenna the greater its range and ability to detect.
A kayak sits so low on the water that I seriously doubt that a RADAR wave would ever touch it. And if it did I doubt there would be enough of a reflection of the wave for a return to be picked up regardless of a reflector or not.
When a RADAR wave leaves the antenna it travels in sort of a cone shape so to speak. That part of the cone closest to the water is going to be reflected back to its originating source by the wave action, at least in part. This is called sea clutter and it can extend out to several miles from the vessel. Some of the RADAR enegry is also deflected by the waves thus weakening it detection ability.
Now a kayak, if it's ever detected, will probably be seen very close in, and this is with a reflector, that it will get mixed up in the sea clutter and be very hard to spot or distinguish. And at the range that it is seen it will be too late. Secondly the person sitting at the screen has a lot to do with it too. Unless he/she knows what they're looking for or in the direction you probably won't be seen. We'd have a hard time picking up sail boats and small pleasure boats outside of a couple of miles and our equipment was way ahead of anybody elses, not to mention the amount of training we received.
I've seen RADAR reflective kites that would probably do a lot. They sit high above the water etc.... The downside is that the wind may or may not cooperate with you. For instance a kite is no good to you if you have to paddle into the wind.
You could try stacking a couple of reflectors on top of one another. That might enable enough energy to be returned that you might be seen. And a third option is to try a CARD system. CARD if I remember right stands for Collision Avoidance RADAR detector. What happens is that the CARD system detects a RADAR wave and essentially sends out a wave of its own back to the RADAR eqiped vessle so you show up as this huge gob of return. You can't be mistaken and you'll definately be seen. However, the systems are pretty expensive and their size is probably impractical for kayaks. However, since they first came out they might have come down in size and price.
Personally if it were me I'd perodically get on my VHF and make a Securite call announcing my position, size, course, speed, etc.... and to ask all vessles to keep a look out for me. But I'm not entirely sure if that's legal in a kayak, I'll have to look it up.
Peace
Jerry
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